Kerry Shook - Taste and See
Now I have up here a pot of chocolate fondue and I'm telling you this is the good stuff. I mean, see, I just wanna prove it to you. Let me prove it to you. I mean, you need to taste this. So I will. Mm mm, yeah, it's really good. I'm gonna double dip because y'all aren't gonna get any. So, hm. Really, I don't care about the marshmallow. The fondue is just great by itself. In fact, the ingredients of this milk chocolate are pretty amazing. Of course, it's chocolate, chocolate chips. It's vanilla, it is whipping cream, butter, and then you mix in the chocolate so you can't go wrong with that. It may not be good for you but it's sweet goodness. And this is pound cake.
So every time you eat one of these you add a pound to your weight. But it's worth it. Mm, I could eat a whole pound cake. Forget the chocolate. And then that's a juicy strawberry right there. Oh, that looks good. How many of you guys like strawberries? How many of you like chocolate? How many like chocolate and strawberries? Yeah. Now we all know what chocolate tastes like, even though you're not going to get a taste of this. But just try to imagine that you'd never tasted milk chocolate in your life. I know it's gonna be hard to imagine. But you never ever tasted the sweetness of milk chocolate.
In fact, you'd never even heard of chocolate before. And then I asked you to take a strawberry and dip it in the chocolate and taste it. You might think. "Well, I like strawberries but I've never had that stuff before. I'm not sure what chocolate is. I've never tasted it before and if I dip that strawberry in it, it might ruin the strawberry". And you might think, "I don't know what chocolate is, but I know what mud is and that looks just like mud to me. And I don't want to dip this strawberry in a pot of mud. Worse yet, it also looks a lot like the contents of a dirty diaper. And I certainly don't want to dip my strawberry in anything like that".
I know it's hard to imagine, but I mean, just imagine if you'd never tasted chocolate before. I know it just sounds ridiculous because we've all tasted the sweetness of milk chocolate. Whether it's your favorite or not, we've all tasted it. But if you never had milk chocolate, the only way you could really know it and understand the sweetness and how delicious it is, is to taste it. You would have to taste and see. And that's the name of our new summer series we're kicking off today, as we kick off this exciting summer at Woodlands Church: "Taste and See". And it's based on Psalm 34:8. So would you stand in honor of God's Word? And it's a really short verse, but it's tasty. "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him".
You can be seated. When it comes to God's goodness and blessings, he invites us to taste and see. God wants us to taste and see so we can experience his sweet blessings in our lives. If we don't taste, we don't see. God doesn't want us just to know about him; he wants us to really experience him and he wants us to experience his sweet blessings in our lives. It's the same as if you'd never experienced chocolate before. You'd have to taste to see. You'd have to risk tasting it or you'd never experience the sweet goodness of chocolate. But to risk tasting something that looks to you like mud, you'd have to trust me when I told you that it's good. You'll taste and see if you trust me. And once you taste it, you'll find that I'm trustworthy and that's the way it is with God. It's a taste test. Really, it's a trust test.
You see, we have to trust him and step out and obey him, even when we don't understand it. Even if the next step looks like we're stepping into muddy waters, even if the next step seems murky and it seems totally unclear, because when we obey God and step into the unknown, even when we can't see it, we then see that he's trustworthy. And God just so wants us to taste and see because he wants us to experience his sweet blessings in our life. He wants us to see and experience that those blessings are so much sweeter than temporary highs and they're so much stronger than any lows that we could go through and he will get us through. God wants us to taste so we can learn to trust that he knows what's best for us. So today, we're going to look at a man in the Old Testament who, like me, struggles at times to trust God. So God had to take him through a taste test so he could finally experience a miracle of God in his life.
In 2 Kings chapter 5, it says, "Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, 'If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.' So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, 'Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.' But Naaman went away angry and he said, 'I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all these waters of Israel? Couldn't I just wash in them and be cleansed?' So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman's servants went to him and said, 'My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then when he tells you, "Wash and be cleansed"?' So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times as the man of God had told him and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, 'Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.'"
So Naaman was this mighty commander of the army of Aram, which is modern-day Syria. It was the greatest nation on the face of the Earth at the time. And this guy was over the whole army, and the king just trusted him completely. He was a man of great valor, a man of integrity who had won great battles for his country. Naaman was also famous. I mean, everyone in all of Aram knew who he was. Everyone in the surrounding countries knew who he was and feared him. And the Bible says that he was a great man in the eyes of the king. But the Bible says something else about Naaman. It says he had leprosy.
You see, the most dreaded disease of that day was leprosy because leprosy was always a death sentence but not just a death sentence. It meant a slow and painful death where your body would actually rot while you were still alive. Fingers would fall off, toes would fall off, limbs would fall off. And in the scripture, leprosy was always an outward symbol of a disease on the inside. Now, we don't experience leprosy around us today, but there is this soul-disfiguring disease that's rotting away the inside of our lives, and every one of us has it. It's the disease of sin and selfishness and there's only one cure and that's a Savior. The only cure for the disease of sin is a Savior.
Now, Naaman, on the outside, he was wealthy, he was well respected, he was a man of integrity. He did a lot of great things in his country, but he had the disfiguring disease that was rotting away his flesh and you may be well respected and wealthy, a man or woman of integrity. You may do a lot of great things in the community. But on the inside, you still have the soul-rotting, disfiguring disease of sin. You see, Naaman had built this wall of denial because he had everything going for him. People would look at him and go, "Man, he's amazing. I mean, this guy's got no problems". But the leprosy not only ate through his flesh, it began to eat through his wall of denial until he became desperate.
How do I know he was desperate? He went to a servant girl for advice. He listened to a little servant girl. There was a servant girl from Israel in the house and she said, "Hey, there's a prophet in Samaria who follows the Lord God, the one true God, the only God who can heal. And if you go to that prophet, I believe you're going to be healed".
Well, Naaman was now desperate. The leprosy had eaten through his flesh and his wall of denial because everyone who saw him no longer saw him as someone who had it all together, someone who had no problems. All they saw was leprosy. He couldn't hide it anymore. And maybe the sin in your life has finally eaten through your wall of denial and you just can't hide it anymore. It used to be secret. You used to, could keep it at bay. You used to, could keep it inside and backstage. But now you can't hide it anymore.
Maybe you just experienced a failure in a relationship that's brought you to your knees, or maybe it's an addiction that's come out in all these destructive ways that you haven't been able to break free from. And now everyone around you knows about it, or maybe it's a failure in your business. You know, many times it's the taste of failure that God uses to get our attention so we can taste and see and experience his sweet blessings in our lives. And so it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how many good things that you've done. We all suffer from the same disfiguring, soul-rotting disease of sin, and there's only one cure and that's the Savior.
Well, Naaman goes to the right place. Naaman goes to God for healing. And I think that's really important to understand that he does do the right thing and he goes to God. But I want you to look at what happens after he goes to the man of God who represented God. 2 Kings 5:9, it says, "So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house". I want you to focus on that phrase, "He stopped at the door," because this is so telling about where Naaman was at this time in his life. He stopped at the door.
So Naaman comes all this way from Syria and he goes to the prophet's house and he stops at the door. He comes with all this fanfare. He has chariots and horses. It's like a giant parade. He has gold and silver and servants and he gets right to the door. He comes all this way with his giant parade and it takes him a long time. It's a hard journey. And he gets right to the door and he stops. He stops at the door. And a lot of people get right to the door of salvation and they stop at the door and they never take the next step to humble themselves, to walk across the threshold and receive the gift that they could never earn. To humble themselves and step across in faith and receive Christ, free forgiveness and grace. They come to the table, but they never taste and they never see. They never taste his grace and they miss out on the sweet blessings of God.
Well, Naaman had come right to the door, but he stopped at the door. Why? Because he wanted God to meet him on his terms. He wanted the grace without the taste. He wanted to see then believe. And God says, "You believe and then you'll see". God offers everyone the chance to step across the threshold, to step out in faith, and taste his grace. Well, Naaman just expected God to meet him on his terms. It was like, "Yeah, maybe for everyone else, it works this way. But you know, I'm kind of different. I'm kind of special. I mean, don't you know who I am"? God wasn't having any of it because God doesn't do it that way. It doesn't matter who you are. We're all on the same boat, and there's only one Savior. And God tells Elisha to respond in a way that I think's pretty hilarious.
2 Kings, 5:10, it says, "Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, 'Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.'" So Elisha doesn't even come to the door. He sends a no-name messenger to go to the door. And the messenger comes out, he opens the door, and he says, "Hey, I need to tell you that the prophet of God says that God told him to tell you that you should go to the Jordan River over here and you dip seven times in it and you'll be totally cleansed and healed. Well, I guess that's it. See you". And Naaman's like, "What? I come all this way and he doesn't even bother to come to the door? Doesn't he know who I am? Who does he think he is"?
You need to know if God is going to work in your life, he does it his way, when he wants, how he wants, because he knows what's best for us. But God knew just what to do to hit Naaman right where he needed it, to knock the pride out of his life, so he could experience God's sweet blessings. Look at Naaman's reaction in 2 Kings 5:11, "But Naaman went away angry and said, 'I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.'" Naaman says "I come all this way and he treats me like this". I mean, he's upset because he's expecting God to meet him on his terms. Naaman is ticked and he says, "This is crazy. I thought it would go this way".
Focus on those two words, "I thought". I can relate to this because this is very telling, too, of Naaman. He said, "I just thought God would do it this way. I thought the prophet would come out and he would go, 'Oh, Great Naaman, abracadabra.' And then this great lightning bolt would strike and I would be healed. It would be amazing. I'd go tell everyone the story of how God did this amazing, unusual thing because of who I am". But it doesn't happen that way. Naaman said, "I thought God should do the miracle this way". But I have to come to this place of brokenness where I realize the way I thought it should go doesn't matter. It's what God thinks.
Look at what God says in Isaiah 55:8: "God says, 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" God says, "My thoughts aren't your thoughts". God says, "My thoughts are higher and greater than your thoughts. And my way is the only way that leads to blessing". It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter what I think. All that matters is what God thinks and what God says. But so many times, I've acted in pride like Naaman and I've said, "God, I thought it would work best if you do it this way. God, I thought it would work best if I do this. I know what your Word says, but I think I can do it a little bit different and it'll work out. You see, you'll make an exception for me. Okay, God? That's cool, God".
And God says, "I don't care what you think you should do. If you wanna experience my blessings, you have to do what I say. My way or it's no way, no exceptions". But we struggle with that. You see, a lot of people wanna follow Christ but they wanna do it their way. It's like, "God, I'll follow this part of scripture, but I'm not really going to do this part. I like this one. I don't really like that one. So you're okay with that, God, right"? But you can't follow Christ your way. You can't do the God thing, your way. To follow God, you have to follow God. You can't follow God some and follow yourself some. You can't do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. To follow God, you have to follow God. You have to surrender to his will and his way.
Oh, but I've struggled with that so many times and we struggle with that because, like Naaman, we want to do it our way. But God tells him, "If you wanna experience healing and taste the sweet blessings I have for you, you gotta go down to the Jordan River and dunk yourself in the river seven times". And when I think about that command, it reminds me of God's command that we're to be baptized. The scripture is real clear that everyone who receives Christ into their life and makes a faith commitment to Christ is to be baptized to show that they're a Christian. Not to make them a Christian, but to show that they are one. Baptism is this beautiful picture that Christ died, he was buried, he rose again, and he's alive in your life. It's also a symbol that he's already washed away your sins. And it's a step of obedience.
Baptism is the first step of obedience after you come to Christ to show that you've already taken that step through the door of humility and said, "Jesus, I trust you completely to cleanse me of this disease of sin, to take me to heaven one day". Now, why did God choose baptism? Why did he say, "Go dip in water to show that you're a believer"? He could have said a lot of things. "I want you to go to the pastor and he's gonna do this elaborate ceremony over you and he's gonna put some stuff on you that's magical dust. And then he's going to have you drink some holy water and then you're gonna climb a mountain and raise your hands and yell, 'I'm a believer. I want everyone to know.'"
Why didn't God say something like that? I don't know. Why did God say, "I want you to get dunked in some water to show that you're a believer"? I don't know. But that's what he said. I see a lot of reasons for it, but I don't know the ultimate reason, but that's what God said. And I found that when God asks us to do something very simple, that seems a little bit foolish or awkward or inconvenient, then we're like, "I'll do something hard and heroic that makes me look good. God, I'm willing to do something hard, heroic, that makes me look good, but I don't really wanna do that one. I mean, God, I'll organize a half-marathon for you and raise money for charity to show that I'm a believer, but I don't really wanna just get baptized. It's not that big a deal, is it? Don't really like getting my hair wet. I'll do this, but I won't do that".
But look at what Jesus said in Matthew 28, the Great Commission. "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.'" Jesus says, "Go and make disciples of all nations and if they feel like it, baptize them". No, he commanded every person who trust him to follow him in baptism to show that you're a believer. It's your public profession of faith.
Now, I have found that most of us want all the benefits of being a Christian. We just don't want any of the inconveniences. Now, fortunately for Naaman, he had some people telling the truth because they loved him. He had some people that cared enough about him to tell him the truth. See, Naaman gets mad about it because he's told to dip in the Jordan River seven times. Now understand, the Jordan River is a muddy little creek. When we think of the Jordan River today, we think of it as some supernatural, amazing, beautiful river because Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. And we think of the Jordan River as this glorious place, but it wasn't. It was a muddy little river, and it still is today.
Chris and I have been to the Jordan River many times. We have baptized people in the Jordan River. I've been baptized in the Jordan River. And I'm telling you, it's a muddy little creek. It takes a big step of faith to be baptized in the Jordan River because there's these little fish that bite at you all the time. And you go, "What is this, some new therapy? This is awful," and all of a sudden you're about, "I baptize you," and "Ow". I mean, that's about what it's like. I mean, they're all over you. It's like, "This is, I'm ready to get out of this muddy water". Nothing spiritual about it. It's just muddy water.
And so Naaman is going, "Why the Jordan River? I mean, that's a filthy little creek. And if I was going to be dunked in the river, then I might as well have stayed in Syria because there's some beautiful rivers in Damascus that are actually clear. I think it's dumb to dip in a muddy creek seven times or a river seven times. Who does this guy think he is? What is he asking me to do? Doesn't he know who I am"? And Naaman stands up in his pride. He stands up for his way rather than God's way. But here's the point of the whole story: humility and healing go hand in hand. Now, let's look at 2 Kings again, as we continue to study this passage.
In verse 13: "Naaman's servants went to him and said, 'My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then when he tells you, "Wash and be cleansed".'" You see, fortunately, Naaman had some servant friends who loved him enough to tell him the truth. In 2 Kings 5:14, it says, "So Naaman, he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times as the man of God told him and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy".
And then the scripture says that he went back to the prophet of God's house and he said, "There is no God other than the one true God in Israel". And I wanna say to you today, there is no God other than the one true God whose Son is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And I want you to know, as long as I'm the pastor of this church, Chris and I will always stand on God's Word because God's Word will change your life. It's the only thing you can build a life on. It's the only thing you can build a family on. It's the only thing you can build a relationship on. It's the only thing that you can build on that's going to last the test of time.